OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, whose organization created ChatGPT, has been heard by the US Congress on Tuesday, May 16. He said governments must regulate artificial intelligence (AI). The risks related to job loss and property theft are especially targeted.

Sam Altman, the chief executive of ChatGPT’s OpenAI, told US lawmakers on Tuesday that regulating artificial intelligence was essential, after his chatbot stunned the world.

The lawmakers stressed their deepest fears of AI’s developments, with a leading senator opening the hearing on Capitol Hill with a computer-made voice, sounding remarkably similar to his own, reading a text generated by the bot.The latest figure to erupt from Silicon Valley, Altman testified before a US Senate subcommittee and urged Congress to impose new rules on big tech, despite deep political divisions that for years have blocked legislation aimed at regulating the internet.

But governments worldwide are under pressure to move quickly after the release of ChatGPT, a bot that can churn out human-like content in an instant, went viral and both wowed and spooked users.

Altman has since become the global face of AI as he both pushes out his company’s technology, including to Microsoft and scores of companies, and warns that the work could have nefarious effects on society.

He insisted that in time, generative AI developed by OpenAI will “address some of humanity’s biggest challenges, like climate change and curing cancer.”

However, given the risk to disinformation, jobs and other problems, “we think that regulatory intervention by governments will be critical to mitigate the risks of increasingly powerful models,” he said.

Altman suggested the US government might consider a combination of licensing and testing requirements before the release of powerful AI models, with a power to revoke permits if rules were broken.

Malo Pinatel, with AFP